Sunday, May 5, 2013

The story of Rouge-Roubaix hasn't came out yet because I wasn't sure
how to approach it. It is hard to be happy because I am realizing my
capabilities and feel proud of myself while at the same time be so
frustrated and sad. No, this isn't the start of some terrible pop song.
This is the story of Rouge-Roubaix and how it changed me as a cyclist.

The
great thing about my new job is I don't work on the weekends. So I
decided on the Tuesday before that I would go down to Rouge and
kill/destroy/potentially end up crying. I knew I wanted to race the 3/4
race (4/5 was an option) and I knew I needed to go hard for 104 miles. I
hadn't done any training rides over about 75 so far this year and knew
that this was going to be a pretty gnarly day for me. I figured with my
fitness, bike handling skills, and general frustration from my last road
race would fuel me to around mile 90, then I could figure the rest out.
I couldn't find anyone from MB/BPC that wanted to go down and race so
Andrea decided she would come with me. She figured it would be a good
day on the bike that would help prep her for the rest of the season.

We
drove down on Saturday with the race being Sunday morning. We drove
straight down, went to the course, and went to do a pre-ride. My nerves
were getting to me and I generally freaked out during the preride. I was
having a hard time riding the gravel, was getting beat up, and
generally was not a happy camper. When we hit the second gravel section
to preview the biggest hill of the race, which has a $100 KOM prize at
the top for each race, I cried. We rode through 30 or so yards of 4''
deep sand, then we rode down this huge hill that had a 3/4'' layer of
sand on the surface. It was time to flip a U and go back race direction.
I couldn't ride the hill. In all of my life I had never encountered a
hill I couldn't ride, but this was a huge bitch. The sand meant I was
going slow, slow as hell actually. The layer of sand added in meant that
as I stalled out and tried to turn to stay up, my front wheel would dig
in and I would stop, falling over.

As a 25 year old,
hot shot mountain biking, single speeding, fuck everyone I can do
anything rider this destroyed me. I sat down in the middle of the road
and cried. I had told myself I was going to do well at this race and
that I would be fine with anything thrown at me and hear I was, feeling
delusional about my ability. It was like this big hill in Louisiana
kicked my face in. The next problem was trying to get going again. I
hate my Speedplay pedals. I have trouble clipping in when leaving my
cove for a road ride, let alone trying to do a flying remount on a steep
hill covered in sand. I was destroyed, broken, and wanting to go home.

Once
over the top of the hill, back through the sand from hell, back to the
car I wanted to throw up, fly home in a helicopter, and never ride my
bike again. We went to the race hotel and found out they had rooms open
so I cancelled my room at the other hotel and we loaded into the room.
After wrestling with my inner demons and getting over the idea of
getting raging drunk and not racing the next day I calmed down. Turns
out whatever cable TV they had at the hotel played a marathon of some
show that should have been called "Holy Shit-Balls These Are The Cutest
Animals Ever" but it was really called "So Cute" or something. Anyways,
after a 2.5 hour brainwash of a show that has personified kittens and
puppies playing with each other as they grow from birth to around 4
months I was calmed down some. I fell asleep.

Race
morning was awesome, I didn't throw up on myself and I did my best "I
should be here" by lining up in the second row behind Tim Moore of
901Racing and a guy who used to live in Memphis and moved away. The
neutral rollout was very neutral. I started eating early and stayed
calm. I knew that Tim Moore would be good. I was planning to follow him
as long as I could. We hit the first gravel and it was like a bunch of
roadies, hopped up on coffee and testosterone, just turned road bikes
onto a gravel road. . . wait. They did. Bikes and people cussing
everywhere. Some guy did the worlds worst remount and swerved into me,
so I yelled on your left as he swerved and made use of all 150 of my
pounds in order to stay upright. There was a little break, but I knew
the feedzone was after this long, long gravel section. I knew I could
catch the stragglers of the front group so I stayed on it as hard as I
could. Strong guys who had wrecked or gotten caught up kept coming
through, but they also were jack-offs who couldn't corner on gravel. I
wasn't strong enough to ride away from them but I kept feeling jammed up
in any turn or anywhere that needed some turning, jiving, not hitting
holes.

Some more people wrecked and I t-boned a guy,
didn't go down, just full stop, unclip, start over. I was pissed. I had
driven all the way down here and I was going to get dropped in the
first gravel. Nope. I caught on to the back of the lead group near the
end of the gravel and popped out on the road with a bunch of people I
thought were a ton faster than me.

We went pretty
steady for a while, everything was cool. We hit the big hill at mile 68
and I was still with the lead group of 3/4 men. Things broke loose, some
people rode all the way, some people ran, some people wrecked in front
of me. I ended up being in the chase group for a good long while. I got
dropped when I tried to pee while on the back. They didn't wait for me.

I
made it 4.5hr mark and was feeling geat. Then the wheels started
falling off. I was tired, I was dropped from the chase group that formed
after the big hill, and I wanted to be done. I kept seeing people come
through, I would hop on and try to go with them for a while. I ran into
the issue of people in my 3/4 field working with the leaders of the
Masters field that started after us and getting towed by. I kept working
hard, and I finished strong. After I stopped I found a Coke, was
standing around wondering when the women would finish/if I should go to
the hotel and shower or if Andrea would be back in a second.

The
director comes over to me "Are you Matt McCawwwlee" I said "Yeah" he
says I swear to God "Your friend Andrea was hit by a car, she is still
talking though, she is at the hospital" So I pound my Coke, get all the
info about hospital location, all kinds of contact info and accident
info, turned my Garmin off without saving (it auto shut down because it
had been stopped a long time, which would later malfunction and lose all
of my data from my biggest race with powermeter), and haul ass to the
hospital on my bike.

Turns out she was mostly ok, I had
to ride back to the hotel, get cleaned up, I lost my shit when someone
had taken my wheels out of the truck and their slow ass wasn't back yet.
I mean fully lost it. I said something to the tune of "Some stupid
asshole took my wheels out of the truck and I have to wait around to
find them before I drive home. My friend was hit by a fucking car during
the race so I really don't have time for this stupid shit. I need my
wheel right fucking now I have to go" and boom, 3 minutes later my wheel
turned up. I didn't fake nice. I just took it off his bike and left.
The women's wheel truck wasn't back yet and I found a nice lady who took
my number and called me when the wheel truck came in.

It
was a long and rainy drive back to Memphis. We left Louisiana 5 hours
later than anticipated (had to find all the wheels, discharge from the
hospital, go to the police station). It was after midnight when we got
home.

Looking back at the results I was 30th overall, 8th
Cat 4. I am pleased with that result very well. It just sucks that my
friend got hit by a car. I will go back next year, just not with Andrea.